Moody’s views and strategy on sustainability presented at Toronto’s CSE Certified Sustainability Program

Participants at the Certified Sustainability Practitioner Program in Toronto welcomed Anna Zubets Anderson, Vice President – Senior Analyst at Moody’s Investors Service in New York.   

As this program focuses on key challenges that professionals have to face in the field of Sustainability, Supply Chain, Corporate Responsibility, Sustainable Development and Circular Economy, Anna presented Moody’s views and strategy on sustainability on the last day of the program, Friday, November 1, 2019.

Anna started her presentation by discussing market interest around ESG and UN SDGs alignment increasing globally. “There is a growing focus on SDGs but there is a gap as we are not investing enough money towards SDGs,” she said. Indeed, achieving the SDGs will require between $3 trillion and $5 trillion in investment per annum in developing countries alone, according to the UN Commission on Trade and Development. Current annual investment in achieving the SDGs sits at $1.4 trillion.

Anna followed her presentation with Moody’s vision to establish ESG assessment standards to meet analytical needs of the credit analysis teams and broader market.

Moody’s objective is to improve transparency using the four ESG analytical tools:

– ESG taxonomy: What is ESG?

– Heat maps: Is ESG material to credit quality?

– Assessments: How is a specific issuer exposed to ESG risks?

– Credit opinions: How has ESG affected an issuer’s credit rating?

Trainees’ reaction was overwhelmingly positive. Those attending CSE’s two-day certification program were excited to hear Anna also discuss how the labelled bond market is growing and diversifying as she presented figures regarding the increase in green bonds compared to the emergence and increase in social and sustainability bonds.

Moody’s is a sponsor to CSEs Leading global Certified Sustainability Program. More specifically, this program aims to equip business executives with updated knowledge and practical tools necessary to develop a sustainability vision and strategy, improve branding and ESG ratings, reduce stakeholder-related risks and lead sustainable companies to deliver economic returns.

CSE’s Certified Sustainability (CSR) Practitioner Program, Leadership Edition 2020, will take place in New York City on June 11, 2020 and its goal is to help sustainability and other ESG professionals rise to any occasion and implement or upscale existing sustainability initiatives taking place in their organization.